"The revolution will not be right back after a message about a
white tornado, white lightning or white people," intoned Gil
Scott-Heron in the early '70s, nearly two decades before Public Enemy
put political hip-hop on the map with "Fight the Power." Widely
heralded as "the godfather of rap," the Johns Hopkins University
graduate has gone on to create a powerful legacy as both musician and
poet, novelist and agitator.

What's sometimes forgotten, though, is the degree to which his music
also conveys a razor-sharp wit as well as a romantic sensibility that's
rarely found in the realm of politics. (If there's a more
heartbreakingly beautiful song than 1994's "Give Her a Call," I'd like
to hear it.)

"If you wanted to classify us as political, that depended on
your point of view more so than ours," says Scott-Heron in the
deeply soulful voice that graces his records. "We like to think that
people look at us as more well-rounded than just political. From the
time we started with 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' —
which we considered satire — we thought we were pretty
funny and had some pretty good lines in there. But everybody else
looked at it as political, and we did too after a while."

And not without reason. Scott-Heron's rise to fame came at a time
when Richard Nixon was drafting his enemies list and J. Edgar Hoover
was continuing to expand domestic spying on civil rights activists.

"We were under surveillance for quite a while, and I think everybody
knew it," claims the Chicago-born artist, who has lived in Harlem since
1996. "We were being watched to see what we would do. And we were
uncomfortable at the time, because we had [Black Panther] Bilal Sunni
Ali and other people in the band who had been politically active in
different directions, and we felt as though we had a right to be that
way."

Unlike many of the rappers for whom he paved the way, Scott-Heron
doesn't like to talk about his eventual run-ins with the law. He
reportedly pled guilty to drug-use charges in 2001, and those problems
continued throughout the decade. Asked how it felt to be going through
all that while George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were occupying the White
House, Scott-Heron answers the question from a broader perspective.

"I think that everybody went through it," he says. "I mean, whether
they went through it to the degree that I did, I don't know. But
I'm saying, we've all been through something of a nightmare."

But these days, Scott-Heron's life appears to be on a long-awaited
upswing: He shared a bill with Mos Def at Carnegie Hall last summer and
has just signed to XL Recordings, home of the White Stripes and M.I.A.
He's currently recording in Manhattan's Clinton Studio, working on what
will be his first studio album in more than a decade.

Even in the realm of politics, Scott-Heron has become cautiously
optimistic: "The first thing that Obama has to do is pull us out of
this hole," says the man whose mournful "Winter in America" sounds as
chilling today as it did decades ago. "We're always looking
forward to spring, but we're looking with a brand-new attitude
now."